N01056:46
Free-grace, maintained & improved. Or, The general offer of the Gospel, managed with considerations…
Free-grace, maintained & improved. Or, The general offer of the Gospel, managed with considerations of the great things done by special grace, in the election and redemption and vocation of those who embrace that offer. And the illustrious doctrines of divine predestination and humane impotency, rescued from the abuses, which they too frequently meet withal; and rendered (as they are) highly useful to the designs of practical piety. : In two brief discourses; published at the desire of some, who have been greatly apprehensive of growing occasions for such treatises.
Boston: printed by B. Green, 1706
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Secondly; Will you not Admire, O Chosen of God, Admire the Eternity from which He has Chosen you, the Eternity to which he has Chosen you.
Look Backwards. When was it that our God first made His Choice of us? We read, Eph. 1.4. ⟨p. 13⟩He has chosen us before the Foundation of the World. Then, it was before the very First Dawn of Time; For, Time is but the Duration of the World. And thus, we are told, That God has a Gracious Purpose concerning us, before the World began. A Ridiculous Absurdity it is, to imagine, That a Man is not Elected, until God has waited all the Time of a Mans Life, to see whether he will Persevere in a Course of Well-doing, or no. Far from it! Before the Mountains were settled, while God had not yet made the Earth, nor the Highest part of the Dust of the World, Even then were we Chosen of God. How does the Ancient of Days comfort us! Jer. 31.3. I have Loved thee with an Everlasting Love. Think, O most undeserving Object of Love: When did the Lord Begin to Think of bestowing His Love and His Life upon me! Truly, His Thoughts of Love to me never did Begin: but they have been from Everlasting; and Ever of Old; Tho' I am one of the poorest and vilest, and most Worthless Things in the World, yet my God has been Thinking upon me, and had His Kind purposes concerning me, infinitely before the Foundation of the World.
Look Backwards. When was it that our God first made His Choice of us? We read, Eph. 1.4. ⟨p. 13⟩He has chosen us before the Foundation of the World. Then, it was before the very First Dawn of Time; For, Time is but the Duration of the World. And thus, we are told, That God has a Gracious Purpose concerning us, before the World began. A Ridiculous Absurdity it is, to imagine, That a Man is not Elected, until God has waited all the Time of a Mans Life, to see whether he will Persevere in a Course of Well-doing, or no. Far from it! Before the Mountains were settled, while God had not yet made the Earth, nor the Highest part of the Dust of the World, Even then were we Chosen of God. How does the Ancient of Dayes comfort us!